Symbolic Action

Today I came across an article about Canadian artist Barb Hunt whose art installation called antipersonnel consists of tiny knitted replicas of landmines. The current installation consists of 75 different kinds of mines; Hunt’s goal is to eventually knit a replica of all 300 types. An important theme in A Short History of Women is the issue of the first Dorothy’s hunger strike for women’s sufferage; is it brave, is it selfish, is it futile? The second Dorothy’s actions (taking photographs, getting arrested) are less drastic but nevertheless have meaning to her. Can Barb Hunt’s idiosyncratic combination of medium and message make a difference? Do symbolic actions work? Remember that in less enlightened times, symbolic actions were often the only actions available to women.

Today I made a donation to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Here are two reasons I support this organization (from the ICBL web site):

The human costs: Antipersonnel landmines still maim and kill ordinary people every day. They blow off their victims' legs, feet, toes and hands. They fire shrapnel into their faces and bodies. They kill.

Civilians bear the brunt. The vast majority of victims are civilians and not soldiers. Year after year, Landmine Monitor has reported that civilians account for 70 to 85 percent of casualties. This is not just during a conflict – most of the countries where casualties are reported are at peace.

I urge you to investigate The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and support their activities. By doing so (and by making a donation) I prove that symbolic actions can make a difference.

A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

Every day Dorothy takes photographs of the C-17 transport planes as they land at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, full of dead soldiers from the Iraq War. For this she is repeatedly arrested. The security guards who arrest her, the policemen who process her, even her own daughter think she is just a batty old lady. “What is the point?” they ask her. Her actions won’t stop the war. She doesn’t even do anything with the photographs. Sometimes her compulsion mystifies even Dorothy herself. But what we know from reading A Short History of Women is that Dorothy comes from a long line of women who feel compelled to take action in order to be heard.

The most extreme example of such a woman is Dorothy’s grandmother, also named Dorothy, who goes on a hunger strike for women’s suffrage in London in 1914 and dies of starvation. Her daughter Evelyn abandons all ties with her past to become a chemistry professor at Barnard College. This book tells the stories of all three of these women and the ways they struggle to get people to listen to them, and what must be sacrificed in order to do so.

The title of the book comes from the title of a lecture attended by the first Dorothy, a lecture (by a man) which, in its condescension and failure to grasp even the slightest nuance about actual women’s issues, inspires Dorothy to embark on her drastic course of action.

Like Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan, which I read a few months ago, this is a book about women searching for authentic lives for themselves and their daughters and the prices they pay (willingly or unwillingly) to accomplish this. I am thinking of assembling a list of books about this topic for Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations, but I haven’t gotten very far. Also like Loving Frank, A Short History of Women is beautifully written and very moving. I am adding it to my list of 2010 Favorites.

(Book 19, 2010)

War Through the Generations

I don’t usually participate in blog-based reading challenges because (as I’ve said ad nauseum) I don’t like it when other people tell me what to read. But a few months ago I found a book challenge that happens to mesh well with my reading habits. It’s called War Through the Generations and the challenge periods are a year long. In 2009 the theme was World War II and this year, 2010, it’s the Vietnam War. The idea is to read several books that have war as a primary or secondary theme, write about them on your blog, and send the links to the blog owners, Anna and Serena, who will post the links on the War Through the Generations site. The result is a really comprehensive list of books and their related blog posts. I think there's also something about prize drawings and such, but I didn't really pay attention to that.

I’ve read zillions of WWII books, including several last year, but discovered the challenge a bit too late to really participate. I did sign up for the Vietnam challenge, though, and have already read two books: The Man From Saigon, and The World To Come, neither of which I’ve posted about yet (but I will soon!).

I like browsing the lists at War Through the Generations. I also like it that the lists include both fiction and nonfiction, and books written throughout history, from contemporary accounts like London War Notes: 1939-1945 by Mollie Panter-Downes, to City of Thieves, by David Benioff, which came out in 2008. I’ve corresponded with Anna and have sent her links to several of my blog posts about WWII books, but she hasn’t posted them yet. I hope she will soon.

Please visit War Through the Generations (the link is on my sidebar), if only to be impressed by Anna and Serena’s hard work. I love it when people are this dedicated to a cause; in this case, spreading the word about great books in a way that is accessible and compelling.

Property by Valerie Martin

I avoided this book because of the disturbing subject matter: slavery in Louisiana in the early 19th century. But I decided to read it after I read The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, earlier this year. I knew that reading Property would erase any of the sweet taste that was left after reading The Help. If The Help was too light, or oversimplified, I knew that Property would not be. It would remind me of the horrors, in case I needed that.

Property is dark, violent and unflinching in its look at what slavery does to slaves and to slave owners. It is told from the point of view of Manon, a white woman who is almost as much the property of her autocratic husband as the slaves are. We also meet Manon’s maid Sarah, a young slave who is forced into a sexual relationship with Manon’s husband, and who has borne two children by him.

Manon is angry and self-absorbed. Sarah is trapped. As contemporary readers we might think that Manon and Sarah would ally themselves against a common enemy, Manon’s husband, but that is impossible. The great divide between slave and owner is too difficult to cross and neither woman can help the other.

Manon’s voice is distinctly contemporary without seeming anachronistic. You can’t like her but you can root for her. Sarah is more enigmatic. You can imagine what she wants but you can never really know her. Martin wisely chooses not to take us inside Sarah's head; she understands that there is no way as a 21st century woman that she can accurately reflect what it's like to be Sarah. This is what makes Property so much better than The Help, this lack of presumption on the author's part.

(Book 18, 2010)

Flashlight Worthy Books

It’s a known fact that book lovers love book lists. As a reader, the perennial question is “what should I read next?” You can often find the answer to this question at online book recommendation sites.

I’ve recently discovered two* good ones. The first is Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations, run by Peter Steinberg and Eric Mueller. Peter recently sent me a message urging me to check out this comprehensive site.

I like sites that are unpretentious. As much as I enjoy reading the New York Times book page, I also need a site that will recommend vampire novels for me, if that is what I’m in the mood for. Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations has hundreds of lists of recommended books arranged loosely by topic. Lists include everything from Malcolm Gladwell’s favorite books, to Top Ten Essay Collections by Lesbians, to the Best Fantasy Series for Teens. The site is easy to navigate, fun to read, and includes a good search feature. As a test I searched for “Jane Austen” which generated many lists, including a list of 21 Great Books with Just-as-Great Movie Versions. A search for “India” got me a list called Favorite Reissues of Neglected Books, among many others.

As you can see, there’s something for everyone at this site. I’ve just inserted a blog widget on my sidebar which shows the latest lists added to Flashlight Worthy Books and which links directly to their site.

*The other really good site I found is called War Through the Generations. I’ll write about that in a few days. I've already posted a link to that on my sidebar.

The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine

Barbara Vine writes psychological fiction. Or more correctly, Ruth Rendell, creator of the Wexford crime novels, writes psychological fiction under the name Barbara Vine. In The Blood Doctor, Vine/Rendell examines the psychology of heredity, with varying success.

The fictional blood doctor, Henry Nanther, specialized in inherited diseases of the blood, specifically hemophilia. He was one of Queen Victoria’s personal physicians, and he treated several of her sons and grandsons who suffered from this condition. Now, in present day London, Nanther’s great-grandson Martin sets out to write his ancestor’s biography. What he discovers is shocking and unpleasant: Nanther’s research on the inheritability of hemophilia lead him to experiment on his own family, with disastrous results.

But Vine isn’t satisfied to just tell us a story about a creepy 19th century doctor. She is also interested in what else can be inherited: in this case, power. It turns out Henry Nanther was made Lord Nanther by Queen Victoria in honor of his work, and Martin, as eldest heir, has inherited this title. Now (in late 1990’s Britain) the House of Lords is contemplating kicking out all the hereditary peers. Vine fills many pages with the ins and outs of these negotiations, and the backroom workings of the House of Lords. I wish I could say that it was interesting, but I can’t. I skimmed almost all of these parts. I get what Vine was doing but just could not digest it at the level she was doing it.

Finally, Vine examines the effects of non-heredity, that is, infertility. Martin Nanther’s wife Judith is desperate for a baby yet cannot manage to carry one to term. Her anger and disappointment, and her obsession with getting pregnant threaten to destroy their marriage. Vine doesn’t have much new to offer here and these sections are pretty predictable.

Each of these three threads might have made an interesting book on its own (okay, maybe the House of Lords stuff not so much). But together it was too much – too many plots strands, and too many characters to keep track of. I finished it but only read the Henry Nanther story with any great interest.

(Book 17, 2010)

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I had heard this was really scary but it isn’t. It is dark and creepy in places but never so much so that I had to stop reading, and I am easily frightened. Instead it’s the story of living ghosts—characters who have outlived their era and who are so unable to adjust to their new reality that they might as well be dead.

In 1950’s Britain the Ayres family (mother, grown daughter Caroline and grown son Roderick) cling to their aristocratic ways in their crumbling mansion Hundreds Hall while all around them the world moves on. Woefully unprepared to make ends meet in the post-war society they muddle along on some meager farm income while Hundreds Hall literally falls apart over their heads. Roderick tries (with little know-how and even less success) to better their financial situation while mother and daughter try to “make do and mend” but nothing really helps. Their decline is chronicled by their friend Dr. Faraday, a new kind of Briton who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Class issues are front and center in this story.

As if the family doesn’t have enough problems, Roderick begins to believe he is being haunted. Strange dreams, unexplainable pranks, and mysterious fires dog him. Without giving too much away, the troubles get worse and eventually both mother and daughter also come to believe they are being haunted, possibly by the ghost of the long-dead child Susan, older sister to Roderick and Caroline.

Faraday is something of an unreliable narrator. His first person observations are clouded by his growing affection for Caroline, his deep feelings of inadequacy, and his lack of an imagination. By placing Faraday as a buffer between the readers and the action Waters dilutes the scarier aspects of the story; everything we read is filtered through Faraday’s unbelieving eyes. I can’t decide if this is good or bad. On the one hand I was glad the story didn’t veer into Stephen King territory. On the other hand, having to navigate through Faraday’s skepticism and platitudes was sometimes a suspense killer.

ETA: Sarah Laurence has an interesting post about this book, along with an interview with Sarah Waters.

(Book 16, 2010)

Guess Where I am at 3:00 a.m.

I bet you can't. Okay, I'll tell you. I'm in the Tel Aviv airport in the Lufthansa lounge, awaiting my flight home to the U.S. Not only do they have free Internet, they have free computers and so I couldn't resist dropping by. The important question however is, what did I read on this trip? Here is what I've read so far:

A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert
Property by Valerie Martin
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The World to Come by Dara Horn (90% finished)

At the apartment where we stayed the owners maintain a shelf of books for borrowing and trading. That's where I found The White Tiger and The World to Come. I left Property on the shelf as my contribution to their effort. I finished The White Tiger and was so close to finishing The World to Come that I decided to just get it from the library at home rather than borrowing their copy. So the shelf is now +1.

For the trip home I have The Condition by Jennifer Haigh. I've still got hours and hours of flying time ahead of me, so who knows? It could turn out to be a 5-book vacation.